Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

If you're looking for great coffee, you have probably been looking at these two machines, and trying to choose between them. I have both the Bona Vita coffeemaker and the Behmor Brazen Plus now, so I will review these on a comparative basis. SUMMARY Both of these machines will make great coffee. The Brazen does better at very high altitudes but has roughly double the brewing time of the Bonavita. The Brazen has a lot of flexibility with electronic controls, the Bonavita is simple and fast. If I lived at low altitude, I would probably give the nod to the Bonavita because of that simplicity and speed. If you want flexibility in brewing temperature and pre-soak makes a difference for your coffee, or you live at high altitude, then the Brazen will be a better choice. I live at 6400 feet, almost 2000 meter elevation. This creates challenges for automated coffee makers since the boiling point of water is about 200 degrees F. The usual Mr. Coffee type coffee makers simply don't get hot enough to make great coffee at this altitude. MECHANICS The Bonavita is a nice, compact machine. I have a shelf 17" over part of my counter which my Kitchenaid just fits under. The Bonavita shares that space perfectly with room to open the top and pour water into it. The Bonavita takes up about 7" deep by 10" width of counter space, the Brazen takes up 9" square. A bit deeper, and similar on the width. The big difference is the height. The Brazen is tall. It can not be kept under a shelf. With the lid up, the Bonavita is just over 15" high - and the top of the water tank is just under 12" high. The top of the Brazen is about 16", and that is the top of the water tank. You will need to have a minimum of 21" height to be able to fill this machine. Open space above is better! The distance from the shower head to the base is 9 7/8" on the Bonavita and 9" on the Brazen (with the filter holder removed). The carafe on the Bonavita is significantly larger than the carafe of the Brazen, although the capacity is almost the same - the Bonavita having a very little extra room inside after 8 cups brewed, while the Brazen is completely full. The Brazen carafe is completely stainless steel, interior and exterior, with no warnings other than to not wash in a dishwasher. The Bonavita interior is glass, and has warnings to not use abrasive cleaners or brushes. It comes with a foam sponge on a handle for cleaning. The Brazen carafe brew-through lid stays on while brewing, the Bonavita lid is put on after brewing and has a spring-loaded sealing lever. Both will dribble if you pour too aggressively, but are fine if you pour at a modest speed. HOW THEY BREW The Bonavita works just like the regular Mr. Coffee type drip machines, only better. The Bonavita essentially is an automated pour-over system.. The conical (Melitta #4) filters are placed in a separate filter holder which fits on top of the carafe. If you wanted to, you could use that filter holder on top of the carafe as a manual pour-over with water heated from your kettle. The carafe and filter holder combination is placed under the showerhead on the machine. Water is heated in a fashion similar to almost all other drip coffee makers using the geyser principle, using steam pressure to bubble up to the shower head and pour through the filter. At the end of the process, there may be some steam, but it's not too much. The system uses a higher power heater than most coffee makers, so the water heats faster and brews faster. This also keeps the temperature higher than the more garden-variety coffee makers. When the brewing is done (you'll know by the lack of bubbling noise), take out the carafe with the filter holder on it, dump the filter, rinse the filter holder, put the lid on the carafe and you're finished. The only real difference between this and a manual pour-over is that you do not have to hold the kettle and slowly pour into the filter. The Brazen machine is completely high-tech by comparison. Water is heated to exactly your desired temperature in a stainless steel reservoir on the top of the machine. When it reaches the programmed temperature, it is slowly released through the filter holder and down into the carafe. The filter holder slides out, and will accommodate the supplied gold-mesh filter or paper basket filters, depending upon your preference. The carafe sits under the filter holder. You need to use the Brazen carafe if you are using the built-in filter holder, since the filter holder has a spring-loaded anti drip valve that is opened by the carafe underneath. There is a manual water release mode so that you can use the Brazen to shower the heated water into a different carafe or a French Press, but you must remove the filter holder. CONTROLS and PROGRAMMING The Bonavita is pure simplicity. It has a single ON switch that turns the heating element on. There are no moving parts to this system - water is pumped via steam pressure up to the shower head. After 15 minutes, the switch pops to the OFF position. There are no electronics so no programmed start time. For me, this isn't a problem since the machine brews quickly, I prefer fresh coffee and I am not so accurate on my morning schedule down to the minute! The Brazen is a mini-computer with many options. First, it requires calibration for temperature and altitude. The MODE button cycles through automated start time, clock time, brewing temperature, pre-soak time and calibration. I suspect that the calibration is ensuring that the temperature sensor is accurate at brewing temperatures. In calibration mode, you set your altitude and it takes the water in the reservoir to boiling, holding it there for a short time. Since boiling temperature is very predictable vs. altitude, this calibrates the temperature sensor very accurately. After calibration, the front-panel readout and a separate thermometer in the reservoir were in exact agreement. For me, I set the altitude to 6500' - the closest to my actual 6400, which automatically limits the maximum brewing temperature to 198 degrees, about 2 degrees shy of boiling temperature. Water release temperature is programmable from 190F to 210F - with the upper limit dependent on your altitude. The Brazen can be set to brew automatically at a set time. It's relatively simple to do this - press the MODE button once to get to the start time, use up and down arrows to set the hour, press the SET button to lock in the hour and move to the minutes, set the minutes and you're done. Press the AUTO button to start at the programmed time. Notable for this system is the pre-soak function - variable from 15 seconds to 4 minutes. The manual recommends longer presoaks for more freshly roasted coffee, with little to no presoak for older roasts or pre-ground coffee. I have not experimented with this yet, leaving it at the default 15 seconds. The MANUAL RELEASE button on the Brazen does exactly what it says - it opens the valve from the reservoir and allows water through the system. Pressing the button again stops the water flow, so that you can meter water into whatever you are using. This would be great for drinkers of green and herbal teas, except the lower temperature set point is higher than the 180 degrees you would want for many of those varieties. CLEANING Both machines recommend using a commercial descaler and not vinegar. The Bonavita specifies that this is because of inadequate cleaning and residual taste issues. The Brazen manual specifically forbids using vinegar. The Brazen recommends wiping down the shower head after use, the Bonavita doesn't mention it, however there was a very slight amount of coffee dust residue on both showerheads after several cycles. The Brazen top reservoir is easily accessed to wipe down if desired, with a stainless bowl and a stainless strainer covering the outlet. The Bonavita is a typical plastic reservoir that drains into the geyser chamber. With no buttons or display, the Bonavita is easier to wipe down and look clean, but realistically there is little to no difference in the effort or time required for cleaning and maintenance. TEMPERATURES & TIMES The carafes are very similar in their temperature holding characteristics, with the Bonavita carafe being slightly better. Starting out 2/3 full of 185 degree water, after one hour the Brazen was at 168 degrees and the Bonavita was at 172 degrees. Turning the machines on with a full 8 cups of 62 degree water in the reservoir but no coffee in the filter, the Bonavita completes its brew cycle before the Brazen even finishes heating the water to the setpoint temperature. The Bonavita starts delivering hot water almost immediately, and finishes in five and a half minutes, while the Brazen just started releasing water to the filter after six and a half minutes. The complete cycle on the Brazen was a little more than 11 minutes. Both machines have roughly 5 minutes of time for the water in actual contact with the coffee. The Bonavita just starts faster since it is heating the water incrementally, rather than taking the whole reservoir to temperature before starting the process. Both have similar heating elements. The temperature of the water after cycling in the Bonavita carafe was 180 degrees, the Brazen made it to 186 degrees (water release temperature was set at the maximum for my altitude of 198 degrees). TASTE It's always been a challenge to have a coffee maker deliver really good coffee here. I have great water, but lousy temperature! The coffee often came out with slightly sour tones, leading me to darker roasts to make up for it. With medium roast Kona from a small organic farm, the Bonavita produced very nice pleasant coffee with some bright notes. The Brazen however was able to smooth out the coffee some more - likely from a bit higher brewing temperature. Side-by-side the Brazen has a smoother more balanced taste, bringing out the potential of the beans and tasting more like my sea-level pour-overs on my boat. CONCLUSIONS Both are great machines. I worry about the longevity of the complex electronics and valves in the Brazen, but here at 6400' it does make better coffee because it can heat the whole reservoir to almost boiling before releasing the water. The Bonavita's temperature drop at the filter of about 10 degrees below boiling would provide a perfect brewing temperature at lower altitudes, and there I would expect the two machines to be very similar, since both have about 5 minutes actual brewing time for 8 cups of coffee. The biggest difference at lower altitude would be programmable temperature and pre-soak vs. no pre-soak and a fixed temperature, complexity vs. no moving parts, and availability of unrestricted space above the machine. Here at altitude, I'll be using the Brazen, and I'll probably take the Bonavita down to sea-level.